


Lost and Found

by babybluecas, Unforth



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Case Fic, Could Be Interpreted as MCD, Ghosts, Horror, M/M, Magic, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Muteness, Subtle Dean/Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 02:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybluecas/pseuds/babybluecas, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforth/pseuds/Unforth
Summary: Dean and Sam's hunt in a haunted forest was bullshit from the moment the fog rolled in.And then the ghost silenced the world.A collaboration between unforth and babybluecas, done for the Writers of Destiel discord Promptus Exchangarama





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> Warning that this fic is a horror fic and the ending is open to interpretation. If you have any concerns feel free to contact me on Discord or comment or here or whatever. (I'm unforth#6748)
> 
> This was fic was written collaboratively by myself and babybluecas for a really awesome exchange - the Promptus Exchangarama. The idea was that each of us start a fic and write up to 3k words, and then the other writes the second half/finishes the fic (also in up to 3k words, though in practice babybluecas and I both went a bit over 3k to finish things off).
> 
> This is the fic that I (unforth) started, and babybluecas finished it.
> 
> The word that prompted this fic was: "Woods"
> 
> babybluecas was absolutely awesome to work with, and I'm excited to share both this story and the one that they started and I finished, which you can read here: [Not Your Average B Slasher Movie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220691)

Fog drifted, diaphanous, amidst the shadowed tree trunks. The night was pitch black, but the mist gathered light from fuck-knows-where, eerie and unpleasant. Dean hated walking through the gray tendrils that floated like ghosts across his path; when he touched them, they made damp patches on his clothes, beaded drops of dew in the hair of his forearms, and clung to his face like he'd walked through a spider web. Something snagged at his arm and he rounded, heart pounding, palms sweaty over the grip of his gun.

It was a fucking twig. 

"Sam, where you at?" he called, embarrassed by the hoarse catch of his throat.

_ Acting like a Goddamn douchebag wuss. _

"Sam?" Dean stopped walking and spun a slow circle in place. 

_ It ain't cowardice when I  _ know  _ this forest is haunted and the whole fucking place is possibly literally trying to kill me. _

Sam was nowhere in sight. The fog made distances deceptive; only when Dean focused could he recognize that his visibility was maybe a hundred feet. In some directions it wasn't even 10 damn feet, and the misty banks shifted constantly.

"Sam!"

A wall of white mist as thick as a damn cloud broke to Dean's left and he whirled, gun raised, off hand under the grip to steady it. Tendrils, like grasping hands, dragged around a large, hulking figure moving silently through the dense undergrowth, features shadow-cloaked despite the light gathered in the mist.

"The fuck are you?" Dean hated the quaver in his voice, but the woods were a damn nightmare… "Don't come any closer!" ...and Sam was missing… "Dipshit, what part of  _ I will shoot you _ ain't communicating?" ...and this entire Hunt was a disaster and—

The approaching figure resolved into Sam, hands raised defensively, mouth wide open as if in speech, moving as if forming words…

...and absolutely, impossibly silent. 

Sam looked  _ pissed _ .

Wary, eyeing the woods around them, Dean lowered the gun so that he no longer threatened Sam, but he could raise it on the instant when he got a bead on a target and figured out what the  _ fuck  _ was going on. With the danger of getting shot passed, Sam dashed to his side, gesticulating, talking a mile a minute.

"Dude, stop," said Dean, scowling. "I can't hear you."

Sam froze. "What?" he mouthed so obviously that Dean recognized the word.

"You're not making a sound, bitch. I can't hear you."

Sam said...something.

"I. Can't. Hear. You."

Sam precisely mimicked the mouth movements Dean had just made.

_ Oh, well, ain't that fantastic. He thinks he's talking aloud, but I can't hear a fucking word, and I think I'm talking, and...yeah. _

Heaving a sigh, rolling his eyes at the bullshit ghosts pulled, Dean switched to the gestured non-language he and Sam had made up while bored too many nights in too many motels with no cable and no wifi. 

**Seen anything? ** he pointed to his eyes, then made a sweeping gesture that would have meant a fuckton more if the fog didn't obscure everything more than ten feet away. Sam shook his head. Muttering curses, Dean tapped Sam's shoulder and pointed left, tapped himself and gestured right, tapped his wrist watch and held up one hand, fingers extended.  **You go left. I'll go right. Meet back here in five minutes.**

Shifting the pistol to a one handed grip, Dean fumbled a piece of chalk from his pocket and drew large Xs on the two nearest tree trunks to mark their location. He expected Sam to argue—bitch always thought he had a better plan—but Sam nodded, shivering as a waft of mist stirred the long strands of hair about his neck.

At least Dean wasn't the only one spooked.

_ Guess I gotta be brave enough for both of us. _

Pretending he wasn't totally fricken creeped out, Dean followed his own instructions and went right as Sam turned the other way. Now that he was alert to their muteness, he realized it should have been obvious. If he hadn't been so fixated on the damn cloud he was walking through, he'd have realized that no twigs or leaves cracked under foot, no branches rustled over head, no water splashed as he bridged a rivulet, no night birds called, no insects chirped, no frogs called from the marshy dales.

Shadows shifted and loomed in the fuzzy gray depths, resolving only with proximity into trees, bushes, and rocks. Seconds ticked by like eons, every breath a lifetime as Dean strained his senses, searching.

All he could see was the fog.

All he could feel was the dampness.

All he could smell was the musky scent of forest growth.

All he could taste was the blood he nervously bit from his lip.

All he could hear was his own frantic breathing.

Fuck this hunt.

Movement to his left seized Dean's attention; he spun on a heel, catching his balance with a hand on the wet bark of a fallen tree beside him, but there was nothing but roiling mist and tree trunks black as midnight, fading and darkening as the mist thickened and ebbed amidst them. 

_ But maybe I should head that way anyway; it's 'bout time for me to meet back up with Sammy. _

Swirls of mist flowed around Dean as he trudged back, trees appearing and disappearing and…

Frowning, Dean stopped, boots scuffing silently at an exposed root. When he'd turned, there'd been three trunks, but now he saw only two trees. Another shadow hovered, fog roiling so thickly around the ground that it seemed to float, just over his left shoulder, and another to his right—where he'd just walked.

And there had been nothing.

With a mute snarl, he lunged through the billowing fog, gun raised to confront whatever was there...and there was nothing,  _ nothing _ save fog and tree trunks and silence. Ominous, oppressive silence.

_ Fuck. this. hunt. Time to find Sam and get the hell outta dodge. Come back when it's sunny, and clear, and see what's actually going on here. _

They'd tried that already, exploring the day before, and found absolutely nothing.

_ And we'll find absolutely nothing now, not in this mess, except a quick, painful death. _

Fog swept over Dean, though the wind was as dead as Dean'd be if he didn't get free of the miasma. He circled slowly, pistol at the ready. Thin spots in the mist showed the stalking shadow shifting, moving, but drawing no nearer. Moving slowly, with the utmost wariness, Dean took a step, circled, took a step, looked over his shoulder, took a step, spun with his gun raised and salt-filled bullets loaded and ready to blast a ghost, took a step, toward his meeting with Sam.

But there was no target, only an abyss of silence, a cloak of fog, and the dancing, unidentifiable shadows.

Focusing, intense and more frightened than he wanted to think about, Dean's vision blurred in and out. Fog clung like slime to his exposed skin, burned cold like poison in his lungs. The forest surrounded him, encompassed him, absorbed him, filled him, disgusted him. After how long he'd spent lost, could he ever  _ truly _ leave? The wet mist coated his mouth, slipped droplets down his throat, made his fingers pruny. A flash of movement pulled Dean's attention to his left but there was nothing, nothing but more of the same, fog and silence and ancient trees and movement always, always at the edge of his vision.

_ Fuck. _

_ This. _

Dean scowled in anger, jammed his gun into its holster, and ignored  _ everything. _ It was all static, meaningless background noise despite the silence, a distraction between himself and his brother and safety.

He just had to find the trees he'd marked.

He just had to find Sammy.

He just had to--

A sting of sharp pain accompanied something streaking by his face -  _ was that a fricken bullet? Sam, what the fuck? _ \- and he whirled in the direction toward which the bullet was fired, looking for a target. Intangible sparkles swirled and dissipated, a salted ghost losing corporeality, glow fading into the background fog. Eyes lingered in the air, piercing, unblinking blue; Dean blinked and they were gone.

“Sam?” he shouted before he remembered how futile doing so was. He hadn’t even heard the report of a gun, even though a shot had definitely been fired, had cut a line across his skin, had come within a hair’s breadth of piercing his cheek. 

Hot blood dripped from his chin, splattering the sleeve of his coat, disappearing amidst the fog tangling Dean’s legs. Squinting, he tried to see through the mist, tried to look in every direction. He’d never wished more to have eyes in the back of his head. Movement teased at the edge of vision, always just out of sight, always gone when he turned.

If Sam was close, Dean couldn’t find him—and that was fricken impossible, because if Sam was near enough to see the ghost, to shoot the ghost as it reached for Dean, then Sam  _ must _ be close enough for Dean to see, even through fricken pea soup London smog. He could swear he saw those blue eyes, brightening and fading into the mist, swear he heard the ghost laughing as it taunted him. 

_ Just my fucking imagination playing tricks on me. I gotta concentrate, find Sam, and call this hunt off. _

Tendrils of his hair tickled at his neck, brushed over his cheeks though no breeze stirred among the branches. Goosebumps prickled his arms and legs. Rounding, he caught a glimpse of a leering form, bone and gore showing through skin like mist, blue eyes piercing, fingers reaching for him, touching him, frigid, so cold, so so cold, and Dean couldn’t move, could only meet that bottomless stare with terror, waiting, waiting, waiting for—

Dean slammed to the ground, weight heavy over him, the spell broken. He inhaled a frantic gasp, stomach churning at the taste of the mist on his lips, the thickness of it heavy in his lungs. “What the...what the fuck?” he gasped. “Sam, why didn’t you—”

Dean’s vision cleared.

Dean was right—there was a person atop him, watching warily, knee on Dean’s chest to keep him from rising again.

Dean was wrong—that person was  _ definitely  _ not Sam.

He was tall, cheekbones prominent, nose and chin cut, features defined and crisp and solid in the foreground against the background sea of fog. He wore an ill-fitting tan trench coat over a poorly fitted suit, tie askew, and despite the gun held professionally at the ready, he looked like he should be manning a desk at a local bank, not hunting through a haunted, cursed forest. He looked down at Dean, expression stern, eyes shockingly blue.

He spoke, unaware or indifferent to the halo of silence encompassing them, but Dean couldn’t even look at his lips to attempt to interpret what he said.

His eyes were  _ inhumanly _ blue.

_ What the fuck is going on here? _

_ Who the fuck is this guy? _

_ Or this creature? _

The blue threw Dean off, setting off all of his alarms.

He knew that blue. His instincts revolted inside him as he struggled against the attacker.

There was something in that blue stare, in its force, its radiancy… It reached deeper, past Dean's survival instinct, past the knowledge that he should trust nothing in this forest. It was a feeling, a nagging at the back of Dean’s brain, a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with the assault.

There was something that wanted desperately to be remembered, almost like deja vu.

Almost like longing.

But aside from his eyes, the man’s face was foreign to Dean. If Dean had caught sight of him at the bar, or among the witnesses, his brain made no note of him. Had he followed them here? Had he been as lost among the fog as Dean and Sam were? Was he a hunter, or a civilian they needed to protect?

Either way, protecting himself was the priority. The man still had Dean pinned down, the knee on Dean’s sternum barely leaving him room to breathe. His lips stopped their frantic dance and now he waited for Dean’s answer to whatever the fuck the question had been.

“Get off me!” Dean shouted uselessly. “I can’t hear you.”

The man furrowed his brow and spoke again, but Dean didn’t plan to pointlessly repeat himself. He had to act, and he only had one chance. In a single, swift motion he shifted his arms and legs, blocking the attacker’s movements, and gained enough leverage to shove him off. Before the man’s back hit the ground, Dean was back on his feet, gun in his hand trained down at him.

“Now we can  _ talk. _ ”

The man looked annoyed, but Dean recognized his fear, too, in the shifting of his eyes, following the glimpses at the periphery of their vision. Even with Dean's gun aim dead center at the stranger's forehead, Dean was the last thing the man was afraid of.

Because they were still in this fucking forest. They were still in this fucking fog. And they were still about to die.

“What are you?” Dean asked, waving vaguely at the guy.

It was futile, he knew. All he got was confusion painted on the guy’s face and more silent words.

_ Let’s try again. _

Dean pointed to the man, then tapped his own ear and said, “Can you hear me?”

A beat. Then the man shook his head.  **No** .

So this wasn’t gonna get easier. The bright side was, maybe the guy  _ was _ just a guy. He did save Dean from whatever the fuck had enchanted him to immobility. If he was the spook that haunted this place, why would he play weird mind games instead of wrapping his cold fist around Dean’s throat and choking the life out of him?

A shadow moved in the corner of Dean’s eye. Close. Too close. Dean whipped his head around, gun following.

_ A rookie fucking mistake, Winchester. _

‘Cause there was nothing there but the shifting fog he should be used to by now. But that second of sacrificed control was enough to let the man spring up and reach for his own gun.

In a momentary panic, Dean brought his weapon back to the right trajectory, years of discipline the only thing stopping him from squeezing the trigger and putting a hole in his only maybe-ally.

Or his maybe-killer.

But the guy’s gun wasn’t aimed at him. Not even his eyes were, as if he didn’t think Dean would actually shoot him. He targeted the invisible void around them, in the opposite direction than Dean had, sweeping his self-assigned part of the perimeter, waiting for something, anything that’d try to attack.

He was covering Dean’s back.

So he was somewhat trained, too. A hunter, perhaps. Trustworthy? Maybe. But Dean wasn’t gonna bet his and Sam’s life on it.

_ Oh fuck, Sam. _

_ Did I just totally forget about my own damn brother? Holy shit. _

Lowering his gun, Dean took a step towards the guy, into his field of vision, to get his attention. With a wave of his hand, Dean showed the stranger the way towards where Dean had last seen Sam; their meeting point.

**Going with me?** Dean asked with a raise of his eyebrows.

The guy shook his head. Not in refusal, though, it seemed. In warning.  **Don’t go there** . He pointed in the opposite direction.

Dean sighed. He had no time to try to convince him, and he had no right to drag him where he didn’t want to go. The way that, for all Dean knew, only led deeper into this cursed forest.

He nodded.  **Alright, then. ** “See you never.”

The guy took a few steps forward, hand ready to stop him. The movements more frantic, his expression stern, as he closed in on Dean’s personal space. There was an unknown question painted in the cock of his head.

Dean bit his lip.

_ No fucking way I'm gonna explain myself to this stranger. He doesn’t have to know about— _

And why did he feel like he  _ should  _ explain himself? What was the guy gonna do if Dean didn’t follow him? Keep him there ‘til the fog suffocated them and embalmed their bodies? Would he drag him away by force?

Why would he care enough for Dean to stop him? Why did he care at all?

Lifting a finger in his left hand, Dean tapped his chest with the other hand. The blue eyes watched his gestures carefully.

Another finger, and he pointed at the guy.

The third finger—a wave of his hand towards the darkness.

A shrug of Dean’s shoulders.  **I have no choice** .

He didn’t wait for an answer, he just turned to go his own way. Not the smartest move, to leave the guy behind him, every silent step and move out of sight. Dean wouldn’t know if the guy turned translucent, or grew antlers or some shit, let alone if he raised and cocked his gun.

The very thought made Dean’s every muscle tense, his shoulder blades drawn close together. He could almost feel the invisible target painted on his back. Or would the guy shoot him in the head, instead?

_ Paranoid much? _

Why would he end him now? He’d had plenty of chances to gank Dean before Dean even knew he was there.

Dude had to want out of the woods as badly as Dean did. If he knew what was good for him, he was already sprinting down the path he’d chosen, searching for the lights of the town laid below, the thumping of his feet muted by the fog.

A few steps was all Dean took before his momentum was arrested. But it wasn’t a bullet that stopped him.

It was a weight on his shoulder—a heavy hand.

He should have startled, but he didn’t. He should have taken a protective stance. No flight, no freeze: Dean fought to survive.

But his instincts failed him. He wasn’t afraid, not under this touch. The shape of the hand fit around Dean’s shoulder like the strap of a favorite backpack. Familiar, oh, so familiar, against all reason, like a muscle memory that sent out the signals that bypassed Dean’s brain.

Relax, it said. Relax, you’re safe.

As if that palm had landed on his shoulder a hundred times before. 

As if the gesture meant something more, much more, than,  **Stop. Turn around.**

And Dean obeyed. He stopped and turned, face-to-face again with his new, temporary companion. Or maybe not so temporary, nor so new. He was so familiar. If only Dean could understand. If only he could remember.

But he couldn’t.

The guy’s eyes had grown so wide; the shaking of his head was unyielding. The touch of a stray thumb was electric against Dean’s skin.

**There’s danger.**

Dean stepped back, hating to break the hold the man had on him. The hand fell away, and Dean missed it instantly.

**Danger** **that way.**

Fuck if Dean didn’t know it was fricken insanity to return to the depths of the forest, the depths of the fog. But that didn’t matter. Despite how much he’d rather let the man take him as far away from here as possible, there was something he had to do there, something...

The man kept on going and going, sharp gestures, urging Dean to accompany him in his chosen direction, then he formed a sign with his thumb and his index finger touching at their tips.

**That way is okay.**

_ Safety? _

_ Escape? _

Was he really sure he could lead them to sanctuary, or was he luring Dean to follow?

‘Cause Dean sure could use safety, sure would love an escape. There wasn’t any way to win here, not tonight, not since he came to this forsaken town, not since he hiked into the woods.

And he was so done.

His cheek still stung, fresh blood atop the drying scabs, sticky and pulling at his skin with each move of his jaw. Damp, his clothes clung to his body like the mist clung to his lungs, and each moment, shivers reminded him of how cold it got up north.

He was  _ done _ : done with the ever-shifting shadows that made him question everything he saw; done with the ghosts waiting for him to be alone; done with the movements that teased at the corner of his eye. 

He was done with feeling that this was the night he was gonna bite it, at last.

He was done with the unnatural asphyxiating quiet, so utter it hurt his ears. Silence covered all his senses like a shroud, just thin enough to let him believe he could trust them.

The heavy, overwhelming, unbearable silence.

Dean was fucking  _ done _ with this disaster of a hunt. The man still watched Dean, waiting for Dean to follow. With just a nod, Dean could leave everything behind. He could salt and burn the whole fucking forest, and incinerate every dead and wicked soul inside it.

Dean put all his effort into tearing his eyes off the steady blue gaze. He cast a glance sideways to the deep dark ahead.

“I can’t—”

The man stepped closer and Dean couldn’t back away. He was too close, up in Dean’s space, invading. Yet it didn’t feel like an invasion.

His lips were moving. His hand wrapped around a fistful of Dean’s coat and pulled.

**Hurry, hurry, hurry. There’s no time!**

Something moved in the distance, but it was different than the shifting shapes before. The shadow didn’t disappear. It was tall and wide, movements ragged, steps heavy. It was still far away—far enough to escape from.

_ But not if we wait. _

But Dean couldn’t move, couldn’t leave. He  _ couldn’t _ .

There was something he had to do first.

Something that he’d left that way, in the direction the hulking shadow had claimed.

And the time to flee was running out with its every approaching step.

They were losing their head start. They were losing their chances at making it out alive.

The man shook Dean, tearing his gaze from the approaching monster. The tip of his nose nearly touching Dean’s nose.

Everything in Dean’s sights was blue, and he spoke with the intensity of a storm. So clear, so thundering, Dean could swear he  _ heard _ his gravelly timbre.

**Trust me, Dean.**

And Dean trusted.

When he pulled away, Dean followed, racing down the path toward safety. The path he must have traveled before, for despite the shifting shadows and the looming trees, he never strayed.

They hurried, as much as the treacherous ground let them, and with each step Dean prayed a protruding root or stray stone wouldn’t twist their ankles and cut them down. A stumble, a fall, would eat their head start; an injury could be the end.

As they took a turn, Dean risked a glance at the path behind them. The shadow still followed, tireless, unwavering as it dogged their footsteps. Though Dean couldn’t see its face, he could swear its eyes pierced right through him, its mouth agape in a bellowing scream. Its movements were unnerving. Quick, yet unsure. With its long legs leaping, with its long arms flailing at its sides as if to catch its balance, it seemed almost human.

It almost seemed familiar.

And it kept gaining in on them.

As they ran, so did it run.

Except faster.

_ Shit. Fuck. Shit. _

They had to pick up their pace—to go all-in on their gamble for freedom—if they wanted to make it out unmauled. With his jaw clenched and his eyes fixed on the obscured ground, Dean lengthened his stride until he caught up to his guide.

**Hurry,** he waved as they came shoulder to shoulder.

The path widened, the trees spread farther apart. They ran side by side as the ground grew steeper and rockier, wet stone slippery beneath the soles of their shoes.

They struggled upwards, but they didn’t slow down. Despite the fire igniting in the muscles of Dean’s calves, despite the fog tearing into his throat like a living thing, with every heaving breath, he rushed on. He didn’t look back, though every cell in his body told him to do so. He knew he wouldn’t hear the cracks of broken twigs. He wouldn’t hear the thumping of footsteps. He wouldn’t know if the creature, the shadow, the ghost, was just inches behind him.

Not until its cold hands drove through his chest, ripped his heart out.

The very thought riddled Dean’s skin with goosebumps.

He was  _ really fucking done _ with this defeaned twilight zone of fog.

He forced himself to focus on what was ahead of him, not what could be behind. The steep slope resolved into a ridge before them: high, sharp, bare. A natural border, a barrier, separating the freakshow of a forest from the sanity of the world beyond.

If they could only get there.

A final stretch of misty fog remained before them, the last obstacle between them and survival.

Dean took the lead. Carefully, he tested the ground before taking each step upward. Too many loose stones cluttered the way. One slip and they’d be back to square one. The slide wouldn’t be lethal, not until the thing caught up to them and—

_ Almost there. _

Dean went down to all fours as he neared the top of the ridge. Clear ground was right there, in his reach. He hoisted himself up on strong arms and hauled himself up the rise, out of the clinging fog, into clear fresh air.

He was out, at last. Free of the forest. Free of the mist. The low whistle of the wind was the best sound he’d ever heard.

He cast a glance at the cursed forest below, at the sharp line where the mist ended. It rippled and shifted like a pool of milky water, and his companion—his savior—was still in its midst.

At the bottom of the hill, the shadow began its climb.

“Come on!” Dean shouted to his friend, though he knew he still couldn’t hear him.

It wasn’t far. He was almost there, too. Just a few more—

The guy slipped. His body jolted down. His mouth opened wide with a silent scream. His eyes, fixed on Dean’s, begged for rescue.

“Cas!”

The word tore out of Dean’s throat as he shot forward. He grabbed the guy’s...he grabbed  _ Cas’s  _ hand before it fell outside his reach. Weight yanked him down, but he secured his footing and held fast.

“I got you, Cas,” he said as he pulled Cas upwards to safety on high ground.

They were above the fog.

Everything was suddenly so clear. And blue. And confusing.

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas said, his low tone so earnest, as if he was thanking Dean for much more than saving him.

“Sure, man.”

How the fuck had he forgotten his best friend?

_ Fuck this whole fucking place. _

He’d almost shot Cas in the face. Almost left him for the shadow to devour.

Right, the shadow. It still plodded up the slope, stretching blindly towards them, howling eerie, horrible silence.

“Let’s scoot before that thing gets here.”

“It won’t,” Cas replied, casting a glance at the writhing thing they had left behind. A smirk played at the corner of his lips. “I don’t think it can cross over by itself.”

“Good.” Dean rested his palm on Cas’s back and steered him away. “Still, let’s get the hell out of here.”

The paved road wasn’t far away—out of the fog, Dean recognized the terrain from when he walked it first. That felt like forever ago. If they followed the path, they’d reach the Impala in no time.

“So we split and you just forgot I existed?” Cas asked curiously, no reproach in his voice.

“Complete blank.” Things messing with his head? Dean’s least favorite type of hunts. “So fucking trippy.”

“Well, I’m glad that you remembered me in the end, Dean.”

The worst part was that their little hero’s journey solved absolutely nothing. The place was still haunted. But Dean wanted nothing to do with it. Other hunters could take care of it, or burn it, or just fucking leave it there, for all Dean cared.

“Yeah, me too,” Dean said, pulling out his car keys.

It was so good to see his car again. He couldn’t wait to hop in and drive off, yet he hesitated. With his palm on the car’s roof, he cast a look towards the forest.

“What is it?”

“I just—” Dean started. The feeling in the pit of his stomach made no sense. “I don’t know. I feel like I forgot something.”

“Like what?”

Dean mused for another moment, then he shook his head. Hopefully, shook out the last of the lingering fog. He had his gun in his holster. Cas was with him. What else could he have left there?

“I guess it was nothing important,” he decided at last.

He slipped behind the wheel; Cas took the passenger seat, as he always did.

Dean turned the key in the ignition, drawing a roar out of the Impala’s engine, and they drove off, leaving the cursed forest—and everyone inside it—behind.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not 100% that I've forgiven bbc for what they did to Sam. *cries*
> 
> (no, but seriously, babybluecas has been absolutely amazing to work with, and we both worked really hard on these fics. I'm so proud of what we produced, and so happy that they were my partner. This has been awesome.)


End file.
